If you only read one gaming statistic this week, let it be this one: In a pre-conference survey, GDC 2013′s organizers found that 58 percent of gaming professionals attending either last year’s conference or this one plan to release their next game on smartphones or tablets. That’s a tad greater than commitments to the Xbox 360, Microsoft’s next console, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii U and Wii, which combined garnered “next game” pledges from 56.5 percent of developers.

It will certainly be interesting to see how this week plays out.

Mother Hydra

As an avid gamer I’m not surprised at all. I keep finding reasons to love pick up and play games on my iPhone such as PunchQuest and Ridiculous Fishing. Now that AAA titles are coming more quickly you can see the correlation to the falling numbers released from all the major console makers. Plus the console makers were slow to roll out any sort of indie offerings to get 1-2 man DEV teams into the game biz- BIG MISTAKE. Nintendo should be eating crow after the disasterous WiiU launch and their infamous words about garage developers. Turns out Ninty needs those people they insulted and drove to competing platforms. D’OH.

Even PC gaming, a niche for the hardcore gamers, is under assault by phones and ipads that can pump out “Good enough” game experiences. And then you have the dog-leg players that go for something totally different such as Year Walk. What I’m seeing is the slow death of the traditional console game business, only worsened by blunders such as EA’s MMO SimCity launch fiasco and death of a thousand cuts via IAP.